Punishing motorists who don’t drive often

The Herald reports:

ACC has decided not to recommend to the Government that levies on petrol be increased, following public backlash after the idea was mooted in September.

Instead, it recommended collecting a higher proportion of motor vehicle levies via car registrations.

ACC recommended the average motor vehicle levy for road users increases by 12 per cent – from $114 to $128.

It had originally proposed increasing the petrol levy by 1.9 cents.

That would have been on top of the nationwide petrol excise duty of 3.5 cents a litre.

But ACC recommended shifting the funding split to 66 per cent for the registration fee and 34 per cent to petrol charges.

“This keeps the petrol charge at 6 cents per litre with no increase but still increases the average motor vehicle levy to $127.68.”

This is silly. Motorists will still pay the same amount to ACC, but those who drive rarely will pay the same as those who drive regularly. As the chance of an accident is correlated to how often you drive, this is unfair.

Because of the backlash to the Government’s regional fuel tax, they have decided it would be politically unwise to increase the ACC petrol tax.

I don’t have a problem with petrol tax increasing if it goes on things that benefit motorists – such as ACC from road accidents, road safety, new roads etc. But Labour are increasing the petrol tax and using it to spend less on roads.